Last updated 15:03, Thursday, 14 February 2008

THIS week I have received a (very) late Christmas card.

I didn’t mind it being late so much as the fact that the senders had enclosed one of those round robin letters, boasting of their achievements during the year.

Now, what annoys me about round robins is that the people who send them do so only as a way of letting you know how much more successful and popular they are than you.

These folk, for instance, tell us that son Colin has been ‘headhunted to a fantastic job’ while daughter Caroline’s career as a fashion buyer is ‘taking her all over the world’ and brother Charles has been promoted and is working on ‘a massive project with the BBC.’

Now they might be being economical with the truth here. For all we know, Colin’s mate has asked him to take over the running of his burger van for a week while he goes on holiday; while Caroline is selling socks on the market in Aberdeen and Charles is flogging adverts on BBC Radio Grimsby.

But wait - they must be successful, because their own children are undoubtedly geniuses.

Sophie ‘continues to excel at school’ while Olivia ‘has passed all her music exams with top grades’ and even little Archie (15 months) is a ‘star of the swimming pool.’

In fact, the only blot on a brilliant year is that Archie’s pet rabbit died, but the family has managed to put that tragedy behind them and is looking forward to a seven week trip to Hong Kong, New Zealand the Cook Islands and Los Angeles.

Writers of these missives never tell you that they are broke, in jail, have lost their jobs, have dead-beats for children or are having to walk the streets at night just to make a few bob. But you might warm to them more if they did.